


My Skin Didn't Wrinkle, But I Did Through Time

by AShoelaceShirtSis



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Healthy Communication, Jester POV, Multi, Oh Mighty Nein, Somewhere post ep 118, Y'all need to talk!, first fic, hint of beaujes if you really squint, introspective, is this angst?, this isn't really about relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-19
Updated: 2020-12-19
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:14:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28166835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AShoelaceShirtSis/pseuds/AShoelaceShirtSis
Summary: A conversation that I desperately want Jester and Caleb to have at some point. Honestly, I just want all these dumb adventurers to talk about all their feelings next episode.
Relationships: Fjord/Jester Lavorre, Jester Lavorre & Caleb Widogast, Jester Lavorre/Caleb Widogast
Comments: 6
Kudos: 51





	My Skin Didn't Wrinkle, But I Did Through Time

**Author's Note:**

> Heyo!  
> I am not entirely new to the world of fanfiction, but this is the first thing I've ever written. Critical Role just got to me, lads. That being said, criticism is much appreciated, but please try not to be entirely too harsh because this is my first rodeo, as the old people say. Thanks in advance for any feedback, and thank you for giving this work a look-see!

“Hey, Caleb?” her voice wanders out, silver and thin. “Can I ask you a stupid question?”

  
“Jester,” his back rumbles against hers where they are sitting on the floor of her art studio, him taking notes in the journal he won’t let her see, her making doodles in the sketchbook. It grounds her. “No question you could ask me would ever be stupid.”

  
She rolls her eyes and chuckles in the shaky way she hates, leaning her head back into the nape of his neck. “Cayyyleb, you know what I mean.”

  
“Ja. I do.” She hears him close the journal and set it on the floor beside them. “I am listening. Please, ask. Perhaps I can answer, if we are lucky today.” She can feel the smile in the vibrations his voice makes against her back. Well, Caleb doesn’t exactly smile, but sometimes he turns his lips into a gentle grin, a teasing grin. She almost wishes she were looking at him to see it right now, but then he might be looking back at her, and she doesn’t want that for when she asks.

  
“Uhm—” Her stomach turns with nerves “—Um, did you ever, like, ever have a mirror when you were, like, um…” He’s beginning to stiffen. “When you were in the-- the Sanitorium?”

  
Caleb pauses for a moment, collecting his thoughts. “No. No, I did not. Such luxuries were not offered. Sometimes, a reflection in the water, I would see myself. But other than that. Nein.”

  
“Nein” she whispers, a thin smile cresting on her mouth.

  
“I’m going to move.” She nods, and sits up as he scoots away so he can face her. Jester keeps her eyes down, fingers tracing along the floor. “Is this about the? Is this about what happened a few days ago?” Her fingers move to the sides of her face, up her recently defined cheeks, brushing the hair behind her ears, barely glancing over her elongated horns. She does not look up into his face, and he does not ask her to.

  
Caleb heaves out a weighty breath. “Ja. Ja, I thought so. Jester, I do not think our… experiences can compare at all. I lived those years. It was not… It did not happen in an instant, as it did for you. Not as jarring, you know?”

  
“But maybe a little similar, still?”

  
“Maybe.”

  
“You had years stolen from you, too. It’s pretty similar, Cayyyleb,” she lilts, trying to lighten her own spirits.

  
“But I lived them.”

  
“You weren’t really living, though. You were like, alive, but you weren’t alive alive. You lost a lot of time, ya know?”

  
“I know.”

  
“When you got out, when you saw yourself in the mirror? Did you… not recognize yourself, like right away?”

  
“It was something to get used to, I guess. But no. Not right away. I had nearly forgotten my old face, and then I had to get used to this one.”

  
“See? Preeeetty similar.”

  
“I guess.” He just breaths it out. She finally manages to look up at him. He is so… quiet. That is a good word for Caleb. He even looks quiet. His face has softened with the return of his red beard, and right now his eyes are large and gentle and a very quiet blue. His clothes are understated at the moment, his fancy coat and scarf having been shorn in the warmth of the tower. She notes this, planning on how to sketch him later. Quiet.

  
“Jester, if this is about what I said. About your… beauty, I mean. I am sorry, if. If it made you feel like that is all we see. In the moment, you know. It was. It was hard to explain what. What it looked like, I suppose. What I though was going on—"

  
“No! No No No, Caleb! That’s not it at all. It’s not about looks, well, it is, but, I just…” She leans back, trying to keep the tears in her eyes as she lets out a half-laugh half-sob mixture. “Gods, it’s so stupid.” Her eyes return to his as he gives a sad shake of his head to remind her that he is hearing her, and she is not stupid.

  
“It’s just, I didn’t get to say goodbye to her, ya know?” Caleb gives a confused shake of his head. “I never got to give that Jester any sort of a sendoff. No salute as I hit a milestone in growing up some more, ya know?” She’s picking up speed as she gets to the parts of her thoughts she was mulling over all yesterday as they walked. “Not that, like, I wasn’t grown up before, but it’s different. And we’re always growing up. And I’m so excited and so scared to grow up, but now, I feel like I’m behind. But also, I feel like I’ve changed in the past couple of days? And I’m—I’m not sure if it’s because I look like this, or because I actually grew up very very fast. But I don’t like it at all. And it’s so stupid and I’m—” Jester’s fully sobbing now, and not trying to hide it at all, “—I’m so scared, Caleb! Growing up is so scary, and it just! It happened…” The thought has petered itself out and is coming to its stop. A big sigh lifts itself from her lungs as she breaths out her last words. “It was so… fast.”

  
His eyebrows are scrunched together in… compassion? worry? maybe a mix of both, with a dash of a lot of other things stirred in. Perhaps, Jester tells herself, she should leave the cooking metaphors to Caduceus.

  
After a long pause, his words finally return to his mind. “I think. I am going to ask for some tea from the cats, with lots of cream and sugar. And I am going to get you a blanket from your bedroom. Is that? Okay? I will be right here.”

  
“Okay.”

  
“Okay.” After he leaves, Jester wipes her nose on her left sleeve, then her eyes. He returns with a blanket after a moment, a couple of amber colored kittens trailing behind him with their tails wrapped around steaming teacups. Gingerly, after a moment where it looks like he was going to hand it to her, Caleb decides to drape it over her strong shoulders.

  
The tea is sweet, and a little spicy, and it tastes like somehow the cats (Caleb) have taken the best tea from the Chateau and the most special tea Caduceus has ever offered them and mixed them perfectly together. If her old home and her new home had tastes, it might be like this. Can something taste of home? If anyone was magical enough to make that happen, it would be Caleb. He is what magic is trying to be; he is what wonder compares itself to. That’s why he would always beat Icky-thong in a fight. Icky-thong only uses magic; Caleb is magic.

  
“Jester?” She flushes as she realizes she was zoning off with eyes locked on his face.

  
“Ya? Sorry, were you saying...?”

  
“No. Just making sure you were still in there?” He grins, in the newfound, teasing way. The way where the eyes are just barely sad. “Cozy?”

  
“Yep!” She smiles. Fake, far too bright, sharp fangs peeking out over her lower lip. She can see him notice as he begins to speak once again. Keen mind no longer racing, thoughts neatly lined up, memorized word for word, though the words stumble over one another as they begin to leave.

  
“I think. I think you do not have to grow up. Not any faster than you were before. Honestly, I think we all were growing up before, very fast. And now. Your years were stolen, not accelerated. You are not. You are not expected to--. Obligated to act a certain way because it would make anyone else more. More comfortable. Your body has changed. Your mind and soul? No. Not yet. Not immediately. Those things, they happen slow. To ask them to be so altered? That would be unfair. Wrong. Evil, even, of anyone. Especially the Mighty Nein.

  
“Jester… your spirit? Your vibrancy, your joy. Your hope? They are infectious. It is wonderful to be around, for m—all of us. We are so fortunate that you have graced us with that. Your kindness, too. Your mercy. Your love for your friends. Mein Gotten, Jester. You are so _good_. Do not think that has to go away and be replaced with serenity and aloofness, just because you have ‘grown up.’ You haven’t, not really, because it does not stop.

  
“My only hope,” He says, very seriously, which makes her squirm. Her—their—wizard is very serious a lot of the time. When he wants to be, it leaves no room for anything else. “My only wish is that maybe you will not feel that you have to be happy all the time for the rest of us. Not right away, something to work on. Like I am working on knowing that the Nein love me, Ja?” He pauses, making sure she is looking him in the eye. “Is that? Would that be okay with you?”

  
She nods, slow and steady, picking up speed.

  
“Your strength? It is elegant and admirable, and it is one of the things that our family loves most about you. But being strong does not mean that you have to wear masks all the time. Being strong does not mean that you cannot share your pain. We help each other.”

  
“Thank you.”

  
“Ja, you are most welcome.”

  
They sit there awkwardly, but not uncomfortably, drinking their tea. Jester never has minded that Caleb is awkward anyway; if he was collected all the time it would be impossible to get to know him. Frumpkin makes an appearance before disappearing through one of the cat holes shortly after getting a few chin scritches.

  
“Cayleb?” She asks weakly, after her tea is sipped away. “Can you hold me?”

  
His face goes blank, cheeks reddening as he looks down at his lap.

  
Is this wrong to ask? Because, like, Fjord kissed her just few days ago (for real for real this time). But, like, they haven’t gotten a chance to talk about it. And, okay, she really likes Fjord. And she really really wants to kiss him again, because he’s kind and strong, and he likes her and thinks she’s beautiful…

  
He might even love her.

  
That’s kinda scary. Super cool, ya. But maybe a little bit a lot right now. Because, no offense to Fjord, she doesn’t think she loves him quite yet. Maybe she did before, when they first met. Before Avantika made her so confused and stupid about everything.

  
“Ja,” Caleb whispers, opening his arms. “If that would make you feel better, Blueberry.”

  
Her heart does a flip on the trampoline that’s apparently strung across her ribcage as she drags her bones across the floor and into his lap.

  
Immediately, she decides that Fjord can go fuck himself if he ever tells her who can and cannot hold her. She tucks herself into Caleb, positioning her head against his shoulder so that her horns do not press into his flesh. He smells like cold wind, and tea, and campfire soot, and licorice, and he is so, so warm as he gathers Jester and her blanket into his arms.

  
 _“Oh, Cayleb,”_ She’s barely even breathing out the words. _“I am glad you see good in me.”_

  
A rumble of recognition vibrates her upper right arm and shoulder braced tightly against his soft chest. “You remember me saying that to you?”

  
“Ja,” she sighs warmly.

  
He gives her a slight squeeze, and they fall into a moment of comfortable silence.

  
“Jester, you know. On the subject of always growing up. I think I would like to grow up to be a bit like you. One day.”

  
She giggles.

  
“It would take a lot. But you know. I would be much better for it.”

  
Her heart is beating so hard and fast that she is certain Caleb can hear it.

  
Oh no. Is this something? Is it like, can you like, like more than one person at once?

  
This is something she will have to ask Beau. Momma? No, Veth. She doesn’t want to remind Beau that she doesn’t know about, all this. She thinks back to the romances she’s read, where it was like, the main character was conflicted about their feelings, but they could always tell. She could always tell who they were going to choose. Do people always have to choose—always or and never and? And anyway, maybe she shouldn’t be looking to those smut books, because according to Beau, that’s not how love works really anyway.

  
But he pushed her to Fjord, when they went dancing near his home, so maybe he doesn’t even like her. Maybe it’s useless. And anyway, Fjord likes her.

  
She’s pretty sure Caleb still likes Astrid.

  
But he did all that Travelercon stuff for her? But maybe that’s just what friends do.

  
Maybe he just likes the idea of Astrid? Or maybe he likes Bren before Bren killed his parents, and Astrid was a part of that, so…

  
For that matter, maybe she likes the idea of Fjord. Or, what if, Fjord just likes the idea of her? She’s pretty sure that she likes Caleb though, but she isn’t sure if she wants to think about all of that right now.

  
She’s rolling down this hill much too fast, she decides.

  
Tomorrow. Tomorrow is a good time to think about this. Maybe draw a sketch or two for The Tra—Artagan (Artie)—and talk a little bit with Veth. Veth is good with questions and listening.  
Right now, though, it is time to be held by her beautiful wizard.

  
“I think that I like you the way you are. I think that you are growing into yourself, Caleb, and not into someone else.”

  
“Can you say that to yourself? For me? And for you. Mostly for you, ja. When you are worried that you have to grow up?”

  
“Ya. I think so.”

  
“Danke, Jester.”

  
“Danke, Cayleb.”


End file.
